Franck: Symphony in D minor (CD review)

The idea of the coupling on this album was to bring
together a big, popular work with several other, less well-known pieces by the
same composer. This is hardly a new concept, and numerous other record
companies and musicians have already done it. It does, however, present two
problems: First, it is not exactly conducive to selling a ton of discs to have
unfamiliar titles on it. Second, the lesser-known works may simply demonstrate
to listeners how much better the more-favored work is. There is a reason, after
all, for certain pieces of art being more popular than others; they are usually
better. Nevertheless, for most classical-music fans, the little ballet suite
and symphonic poem that accompany Franck’s Symphony
in D are welcome additions.

The big, popular work, the Symphony in D minor by French (Belgian-born) composer, pianist, and
organist Cesar Franck (1822-1890), opens the show. Franck wrote it, his only
symphony, in 1888, premiering it in Paris the next year, shortly before his
death. It received a poor reception at the time, thanks largely to the musical
politics of the day (leading French musicians disliked Franck’s blend of German
and French musical traditions), but has obviously since become a mainstay of
the classical repertoire.

One of the unusual features of the Symphony is that Franck wrote it in only three movements. The first
movement, marked Lento - Allegro ma non
troppo, begins, as Franck notes, slowly and builds momentum, though never
too fast. Leading the Liege Royal Philharmonic, Maestro Christian Arming takes
his time developing the themes in this movement, increasing the pace
methodically and never making any sudden tempo changes. Instead, he makes
Franck’s many shifts of key and tempo seem entirely normal and expected, he
integrates them so smoothly. Indeed, if one were to be highly critical at all,
one might say Arming was a little too refined, that Franck requires more gusto,
more bravura. I don’t know; what we hear is persuasive enough, with adequate
power when needed.

The second movement, an Allegretto, contains Franck’s famously fetching French horn melody.
Franck himself described this section as resembling “an ancient procession,”
and listeners through the years seem to have agreed. That’s the way Arming
plays it, as a long, slow march, with a more enlivening theme developing toward
the middle. Yet Arming makes it appear as a logical extension of the
processional design.

The final movement, marked Allegro non troppo, takes us back in spirit to the start of the
piece and sounds generally cheerful and exultant. Because Franck used a
typically French cyclic style for the themes, we hear variants of the opening
motif reoccurring throughout the work. Arming supplies plenty of energy here,
without sounding frenzied or exaggerated. His interpretation stands up as
cultured and well tempered to the end.

My preferred
recordings for the Franck Symphony
remain those of Sir Thomas Beecham (EMI), Pierre Monteux (RCA), Charles Dutoit
(Decca), and Marek Janowski (Telarc). However, Maestro Arming makes a good
showing of it, and one should not discount his recording in any way.

The first coupling on the disc, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne (“What one hears on the mountains”)
is an atmospheric tone poem, creating a mood rather than depicting any specific
scenes. It is quite a lovely piece of music, portraying a lonely, isolated
place somewhere high up in the mountains. Arming draws out this Man vs. Nature
motif nicely, providing a quiet sense of desolation without letting the music
become morbid or depressing.

The second coupling, Hulda,
Ballet allegorique, is something we almost never hear on record or in the
concert hall. It’s a little five-movement ballet suite from Franck’s
long-forgotten opera Hulda, and the
music comes as a treat. Under Arming, it is alternately lyrical and exciting,
and always charming. The question is why more conductors haven’t recorded it.

A generous eighty-one minutes of playing time caps off a
fine release.

Fuga Libera (meaning “free flight”), a label of Outhere
Music, recorded the album at Salle Philharmonique, Liege, Belgium, in 2012. The
sound in the Symphony is a model of
natural audio reproduction. The orchestra stands before us at a moderate
distance, the listener appearing to be perhaps twelve rows or so back. One
still hears a wide stereo spread yet with a modicum of orchestral depth and
good tonal balance. Bass is only modest, the highest notes seem a bit muted,
and played too loudly there is a touch of forwardness in the lower treble.
Midrange transparency also suffers slightly, while remaining realistic from
this perspective. The overall effect is warm and lifelike, making a most
pleasant listening experience. For whatever reason, maybe a change in miking,
the accompanying items sound a tad more open and dynamic.

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John J. Puccio

About the Author

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on The Big John and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

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It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job.

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